Dear 2020,


   “I know that this is going to be the last letter. Things have gotten worse, so much worse, and I know that I will disappear like I was never there. I never affected anyone much, really, I just got in the way, and caused people shame. I’ve caused myself shame. I’ve done all the wrong things, and I know that now I am a burden on my family. They have all gotten tenser since I was diagnosed. They have gotten angrier, now they fight more than they ever used to. I am such a burden on them. They don’t need me, all I do is disappear into my room and try to pray for God to **** me in my sleep or something, which obviously isn’t working. I’ve brought everyone's mood down. I’m sorry if I had seemed promising before, I will have never had much of a life at this rate and I know Sean can be”

   I don’t know what else to say. I believe in it all, except for the part about this being the last letter, but if I had written to you last night like I was going to then this is probably what I would have said. I instead used a crisis text line, which helped… for a while.
   I don’t like coming home anymore. I don’t think Connor, and the rest of them could understand, when it’s not abuse or anything, it’s just so unhappy here. Everything is tense, and it doesn’t feel like a home anymore. I am yelled at so much, and cut so little slack.
   I am eating again… way too much. And I’ve… found another razor head. After all that digging in my bathroom, I knew I would. But if I’ll use it… Oh, I know I probably will. Having my body hurt takes my mind off of my heart, which is why I also like P.E. Even know, with my hand wrapped up, I earn so much sympathy at school when Connor is really the only one who knows what really happened to it. Well, Connor, my parents, and you.
   I really don’t think my parents love me anymore. They had loved a tomboy, with long hair, extroverted, with skills at writing and drawing and who didn’t care whether people hated her or loved her. I am feminine, with a boy’s haircut that I don’t like to brush, introverted, with anorexic tendencies and no passion or skills at anything at all. And yet somehow my broken, hurting self-attracts people. Overall of my years in elementary school, three people had confessed their feelings for me. In this year alone, it has been five. What hurts is knowing that even those who I do like back I could never be a worthy partner for. The chance of my dying, lashing out at them, or simply deciding to ignore them as an isolationist technique to be happy is much too high, which is why only two of them like me now.
   I’m so tired. All the time. Even when I take naps (for instance today I fell asleep at Walmart) I am still extremely tired. I think I am just tired of being here. I want to go home. I say this a lot to myself, although I don’t really know where I mean by home. I think I mean this third dimension, one I’ve thought up myself. It’s the place I go when I sleep, or when I’ in my room by myself for a long time doing nothing. Sometimes when I say I want to go home I mean that I want to die, so that I could live in that third dimension forever. I would really like that.
   It’s called the third dimension because if my actual house is the first dimension, and school is the second, then that is the third. The rest of my world (Walmart, the castle, etc.) is just surrounding fabric of the first (and largest) dimension. But when I don’t want to be either at home or school, I want to go to the third dimension. Which is like death, and can be rarely mimicked from one of the other dimension. And even if I am homeschooled next year, I will not be able to escape the first dimension. So I need, and want, the third.


That is all I have to say, really, except that I am thinking of posting these letters on my Hello Poetry page, since I will never read them in 2020, and perhaps someone will find that I am relatable. Or stupid.


Love always,


Hollin

this is a tale
of two star-crossed lovers
with a love so powerful
they tainted the heavens
with bursts of colours

they were never meant to be;
mischievous little kids
finding love in sinful glee
in laughter, between dreams and reality

and though it was lawless,
they found solace
because in every prison,
they found a rhyme and a reason

but even for a love so great,
they could not escape
the fates’ wrath and envy

destiny pulled on their threads
cut them loose, thrusted them into misery;
for their memories were wiped clean,
but feelings remained as strong as they had ever been

the boy exiled in a far off land
across the pacific sea
the girl trapped in her need to break free
in a realm both boring and bland

ensnared in a labyrinth of woe
the lovers yearned for anything—
for something, for someone,
to obliterate this endless longing

the gods answered them
in the form of two loved ones
polished in every edge,
a perfect someone

but perfect felt too perfect
and not perfect enough
to fill up the hole
left by a perfectly imperfect

until one day the gods whispered
for the winds to push the two
and the birds to tug at their sleeves
over mountain and sea
even through the darkest valley
so their paths would finally meet

and so they did.

in the flurry of a moment
a pair of brown eyes met
and time was frozen
once more

the two stared intently
as if remembering a broken melody
a lost childhood song
branded as a wrong

the birds fluttered and flew
taking the cursed red fibre
snipped them in two
and the lovers felt all the lighter

it was the girl who spoke first:
“**** the stars.
i don’t want perfect,
i want you.”

eyes dazzling, the boy nodded:
“we’ll invert the universe—
the night sky a blank white
the stars pitch black
the earth moving in reverse”

the fates saw and surrendered
as the stars began to wither
for this love is love
in all its splendor

so the lovers walked away with a promise
under their breaths, they both swore:
“i lost you once,
but nevermore.”

who was it - walking down the school corridor?

a Spanish teacher?

an honors student?

a football player?

you'll never know; you didn't care.

did it feel good,
mister shooter?
to pull the trigger on

a mother?

a best friend?

a boyfriend?

to take the lives of family and friends and lovers of innocent people?

was seeing those who have hurt you
suffer by your hand
worth a life behind bars?


16 years old

yet you think you have the right to take away life?

you press your lips to mine
and a new sensation travels
from the contact
spreading all the way to
the tips of my fingers to
the ends of my toes
this unfamiliar pulse
is slightly frightening
but, oddly enough,
above all else,
is exciting
and sends a shiver down my spine

a happy hum slips past my lips
while your arms encircle me
and for the first time
in forever
i feel like
i’m at peace

If it doesn’t **** you,
You’ll wish it did.
And that’s the sad reality.

Blood drips down your arm;
There will be a permanent scar,
If it doesn’t **** you.

You lost the will to live;
You have no more passion
And that’s the sad reality.

You use it to numb the pain;
It makes you feel better,
If it doesn’t **** you.

They made you feel like ****;
They drew you to it,
And that’s the sad reality.

You’re addicted to the feeling on your skin.
You’ll use it every day
If it doesn’t **** you,
And that’s the sad reality.

i have studied how men
have ensnared women
and called it love

to those who cannot fathom
a woman beyond womanhood
or a woman  beyond man

she was never yours to understand
she belongs to the deity of her own creation
she belongs to the eve who bit the apple and never apologized